One Act Play

(The scene opens on a couple and their young son, around 3 or 4, standing on the steps of a home.)

Martha: Todd, sweetie, could you please fix your shirt? It’s untucked in the back and we want to make a good impression. And Jackson, wipe that dirt off your pant leg! Can’t you stay clean for once? My goodness!

Todd: Take a deep breath, we’re all cleanly shaved, showered, and dressed. Jackson had some apple slices before we left so he should be fine until we leave for supper. Everything’s going to be fine, Martha, just relax. 

(Martha takes a deep breath, then rings the doorbell. A loud commotion can be heard from outside the house and the door opens. A dog rushes out and jumps onto Martha.)

Martha: Oh dear! Oh no, my pants! They were brand new!

(The dog had jumped on Martha, his dirty paws staining her new, white pants. A woman emerges into the doorway, wearing a old t-shirt and ripped jeans covered in paint stains.) 

Dakota: Sorry about Baxter. He can get a little jumpy when meeting new faces. But please, come in, come in! My name is Dakota, and my husband Mark will be come upstairs in a little bit, he's down in his studio. Can I interest you in a drink?

Todd: A glass of ice water would be perfect, thank you. 

Martha: Jackson, why don't you go find Brian and play, ok? I'll call you when we're going to leave. 

(Jackson runs down the hallway to find his friend Brian. Martha looks around the dirty living room, trying to find something to compliment.)

Martha: Oh what a lovely painting! Did Brian paint that? 

Dakota: No, I did. 

Martha: Oh. 

Todd: SO anyways Dakota, what do you do for a living?

Dakota: I don't really have a job, I spend most of my time at home painting or making jewelry, and Mark usually stays downstairs and does his wood work. 

Martha: So you don't have a real job? 

Dakota: My job is painting and sometimes I make jewelry. 

Martha: But how do you make money?How are you even able to afford little things like food? Where do you get your income? 

Dakota: I'll sell my paintings and jewelry online on my website, and Mark makes tables and carvings that he can sell. 

Martha: People actually buy that stuff? 

Dakota: Sometimes money can be tough for us and we have an extremely tight budget when it comes to clothes and food, but we're doing what we love. 

Martha: Shouldn't you love going to bed in a full stomach and seeing your son in clean, new clothes?

Dakota: I provide my son with everything he needs and more, and just because I don't sit behind a desk all day crunching numbers doesn't make me any less of a person than you are. I'm happy doing my work, it's something I love. And shouldn't that be what life's all about? Doing what makes you happy and living the best life you possibly can? 

Martha: I think having a steady income is the best life you can live. 

Dakota: Well I disagree with you there, Martha. I actually choose to enjoy life and make it fun and interesting. Now if you'll excuse me, I have plenty of food in which I prepared for you both, let me grab it from the kitchen. 

(Dakota exits the room, and Todd gives Martha a disapproving look. Then the lights fade out.) 

Picture Perfect Stories

The hangover hit me hard, the room spinning if I moved too fast or tried to walk around. The sharp, white lights of the hospital fueled a raging headache which probably created a pain the equivalent of being whacked in the head with a hammer or some kind of hatchet. I want to see her, I need to, but the small amounts of food I had managed to keep down were threatening to find a way outside of my body whenever I would attempt to stand. The doctors have ordered me to remain in the waiting area, only immediate family could enter the ICU, but I need to see her. Need to see that she was okay, to see that she was going to be fine and nothing was wrong, that once she woke up everything would be okay and go back to normal. I need the guilt that was sitting in the pit of my stomach, along with the alcohol and a couple crackers, to go away. I need to know I haven’t hurt her. I would never hurt her. But somehow we ended up here, her expensive dress ripped to shreds with her blood smeared on my tuxedo and alcohol staining my breath, my ’72 Chevelle at the bottom of the reservoir.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the sky was clear, not a cloud to be seen for at least a few miles. The temperature was what most would describe as perfect, not too hot yet not too cool either, a slight breeze swayed the tree branches and allowed the leaves to dance while birds sang quietly in the background. It was the kind of day people would pray for, fathers would stop watching the game long enough to mow the lawn and mothers would kneel inside their gardens, while children would actually put down their phones long enough to enjoy the weather, the volume of their screams and laughs escalating thanks to the absence of walls and the need for an “inside voice”. For most it was a perfect day. But I resented the birds, and the way their singing reminded me of hers. I wished clouds would completely cover the sky, the enormous, dark clouds that made it seem like the sun would never appear again, clouds that would quiet the children’s’ laughs and force parents to put their landscaping tools back inside the shed. I wanted it to rain, complete torrential downpour, the kind of rain that caused flood warning alerts to make everyone’s phones buzz. The world wasn't deserving of sunny, with perfect temperatures and a slight breeze. The trees didn’t deserve to dance and the birds shouldn’t be allowed to sing. The children aren’t allowed to laugh and moms and dads don’t deserve to get to try and make their yards look better than their neighbor the next door over. Not when she couldn’t either.

I had loved her ever since the day I saw her. Had never spoken to her, she probably didn't even notice me, but I was completely, head over heels in love with her. The first thing I had noticed were her eyes, large and round, a sparkling emerald color that would sometimes change based on the atmosphere around her. I was captivated by her eyes, then the splash of freckles would peak through the minimal makeup on her face. Her cheeks were rosy pink, often becoming red when she felt awkward or a little uncomfortable in a situation. Her hair was golden, soft and smooth, and reflected the sun whenever she'd flip it over her shoulder or pull it back, which she did whenever she fully got into her zone, oblivious to everything else besides her task. Her clothes were always simple, never drawing too much attention to herself, yet she somehow always managed to look better than everyone around her. But there was something wrong with her nose. Her nose always seemed out of place, like it didn't belong on a face as beautiful and stunning as hers. A small trickle of blood always seemed to crawl it's way onto her lip, never a lot but enough for her to become flustered and frustrated and rush out of the room. She started spending more and more time sleeping; in the library, during study hall, sometimes she'd even clock out during class, often earning we a lecture I'm positive she'd tune out. She had been a smart student, no valedictorian or anything, but bright enough to to get her into a good college, yet suddenly she stopped showing up for class, staying for attendance then scurrying into the bathroom. Her bones started to become more prominent, her face sullen and pale, her lips chapped and cracked. Her emerald eyes lost their sparkle, turning dull and empty. She was still beautiful, nothing could change that. But she had changed, she now seemed so sad, so damaged. Broken. 

The office lights of the overachievers still working late, the ones loved for their job, who rarely went home and their significant other was the company laptop instead of a real living a breathing human, lit up the city. It was my favorite view, the brightness in contrast to the dark skyline. It had been that way ever since I was a child. I'd sit on the small window seat next to the window of our 2 bedroom apartment on the fourteenth floor of the old brick building and watch the sun disappear and the stars come out. The city continued to move no matter the time, taxi drivers swerving around everyone else, horns muting the expletives almost every driver would yell. Some people hated the noise, the inevitable craziness of city made them turn their noses away and sprint towards the suburbs. But I loved it. The city was filled with people constantly moving about and noise that never stopped and the occasional rodent that would scurry past you and hiss while you waited for the subway. That germ-infested, rodent-crawling, street food selling, office light lit up city was my home, it was where I belonged. 

I have always been afraid to fly. The idea of being trapped and restrained inside a metal contraption that's flying hundreds of miles an hour thousands of feet above the ground just isn't something I find to be fun or exciting. When I was a child, and my family took us around the world, I was fine with planes and the idea of flying. The sky didn't scare me and I enjoyed flying with the clouds. The constant motion of all different people inside the airports always captivated my attention and as a child, you can never go wrong with gift shops at every corner. Security was always my least favorite, the shrill sounds of metal detectors always hurt my ears. But flying never really bothered me. But for some reason, when I boarded the plane headed towards Europe, panic set in and the plane walls caved and all I wanted was to get off the plane. I hadn't been on a plane ever since the accident, but I didn't think it would be problem. It shouldn't have been an issue, I had flown countless times with them, but all I needed was to get off the plane. 

Three hours. All I had to do was make it through three hours of the reception then it was officially acceptable to leave before everyone became too hammered and something awful would happen. The ceremony had been torturous. Her blonde hair was perfectly curled and pulled into a fancy knot that rested by the nape of her neck. Her dress was simple, white with some embellishments around her petite waist, fitted tightly to her perfect figure. Her skin was perfectly tanned, a perk of living by the water and never having to work due to Daddy's paycheck. Her jewelry was equisite, probably costing more than my student loan debt. And then there was him, waiting for her at the end of the aisle. Smiling, his eyes only on her. His tuxedo was perfectly tailored to fit his slim figure perfectly. His usual scruff had left his chin and his hair had been cut and styled perfectly. And I hated him for it. I wished he had gotten fat so his suit looked rumpled and wrinkled, ugly and imperfect. I wished he had gotten some gene from his family which made him go bald and grey by the time he had hit 25, and I wish his wife to be wasn't a supermodel who never looked less than perfect. But I got the invitation asking if I would attend, a phone call promising it wouldn't be weird, and now I'm here enduring torture for at least three more hours. 

6 Pictures

Picture Perfect

It was beautiful to look at. The water was always blue and clear, with the occasional fish swimming by my feet. The rocks were large and smooth, which made them less painful when walking barefoot. Trees grew tall all around the sides of the spring pool, creating a wall that hid itself from the world. Hid me. The first couple times it had happened, I had just sat there, stunned, my face stinging, , unable to move a muscle. I had run to my room and let the tears stain my cheeks. I had been afraid of ever coming out of my room, fear of what would happen to me or what he would say to me, but the bottle of Scotch usually ended up wiping away any memories he had of the previous. He'd get drunk almost every night, wailing for her to come, praying he'd wake up and she'd be lying next to him, healthy and cancer free. But each night would drag on, and she would not come. Liquor was his only friend, and he'd get too drunk to remember why I was covered in bruises. That's how I found the place. I had walked in after school and could hear him puking in the kitchen, and he was screaming out her name. I was too afraid to face him, so I ran. Ran deep into the woods and had no intention of stopping until I was too far to go back. And I reached the pool with rocks that weren't too sharp and the trees that hid it from the world, and I prayed I would never have to go back.

"Burst" Writing

Prompt: Write a short story in which one character reduces another to uncontrollable sobs without touching or speaking to the person.

264 days. He had boarded the planes and left for Afghanistan 264 days ago. 324 days ago he had gotten down onto his bad knee and promised me a lifetime of happiness and love as long as I said a simple three letter word. 324 days ago he scooped me into his arms and placed the ring on my finger and I couldn't stop smiling for who knows how much time. 323 days ago we were lying together in our small apartment overlooking the city and he promised me the world, a life for the two of us. He promised me a family, 2 boys and a girl, that we could watch grow up. To scold when they would take home a grade we knew could be better or to praise when they won an award or scored a goal. He promised me a new home, in the suburbs so the kids could run and play but still close to the city we were both raised in. A big, pale blue house with a giant kitchen and a porch that wrapped around the front, a place where I could drink a cup of coffee and watch the sun rise. The back yard would be surrounded by a white picket fence, keeping our dog on our property and out of the flowers. 323 days ago we planned our forever, our lives and how we could share them. But 6 days ago, the soldier came to up to the door of our little apartment, dog tags and a letter in his hands. He didn't have to speak, or open his lips, or even look me in the eye. I knew, tears flowing from my eyes, muffled sobs escaping my lips. He did not have to move for me to know, that in that very instant, forever was over. 

Irony

It was an everyday routine. The alarm would begin its annoying yet effective beeping at exactly 5:27 a.m., which allows me about three minutes to stare up into the darkness as my ceiling fan swings in circles. After the three minutes pass, I’d crawl into the bathroom about 100 feet away and hop in the shower, usually taking about 12 minutes. After I had finished in the shower, I’d dry my hair, it’s length and thickness taking up about 20 minutes of my time. Make up normally took about nine minutes, and I’d spend about six minutes dressing myself in the plain clothes that I had placed on my dresser the night before. Never anything fancy or nice, as it would often end up getting dirty and being covered by the heavy suit if we got the call. After I finished getting dressed, I’d walk about 300 feet into the small apartment kitchen where it would take four minutes to make a pot of coffee and pour it into a travel cup, then climb into my car. The station was only 5 minutes away, so if I remained on task and got ready as I did everyday, I’d get to work with a few minutes to spare before my shift would start.

I always had everything planned out. My days were always mapped out, strategically set up so everything went perfectly, as planned. I was always perfect. I’d sit at the my desk waiting for the phone to ring, usually an older woman who needed her cat rescued from a tree, but occasionally we’d have to send the trucks out or an ambulance to the scene of a nearby accident. I stood in the small kitchen, making myself some breakfast. I never would usually leave my desk while on duty, but my lunch break wasn’t for a while today and I was more hungry than usual. I may or may not have decided to pour myself a glass of wine, and then another, but really I can’t remember. As I may or may not have been pouring my third glass, I heard the faint ring of the phone in the other room, and I sprinted to my desk to answer it. Bus accident and few miles away, many injured and 2 dead so far. I dispatched the ambulances, then sat at my desk relieved my change in schedule hadn’t cost anyone a life or me to miss the call. I walked back into the kitchen to find if engulfed in flames.  

Go

Poems

Epitaph:

Here she lies

handfuls of dirt

and a blanket of flowers covering her while she sleeps

shielding her from the cruelty of the world

the same cruelty

that put her to sleep

 Haiku:

With money and fame

How easy it is to lose

Who you really are

Terza Rima:

They may call you names
Make fun of the things you do
Hurt you yet feel no shame

Their words can reach your insides and cut though
A sharp slice inside
Leaving you to feel defeated and blue

Somehow this makes people satisfied
Tearing others down to make selves feel better
As they lack their own confidence inside

But the next time she makes fun of your sweater
Or he pushes you down the stairs
Do not let him and her

Wear what you would like to wear
Do what makes you happy
So what if it's different, other people shouldn't care

Tone Narratives

I think it could be good. It's a new place, with lots of new people. It's much nicer than where we are now; bigger, newer. It's completely different but that could be good. I get to pick a new room color and go to a new school, I'll get to make so many more friends and build connections with other people around me. The beach will be nearby and I can wake up and hear the birds sing as the waves crash on the shore. It'll be good.

I don't know about this. There will be so many people I don't know, who don't know me. The house is so much bigger, which means more to clean, which is more that won't get cleaned, ultimately leading to Susan screaming. And really what's wrong with where we live now? I'll have to completely redo my room. It's a completely different school, much bigger and I know no one. I'll be forced to make new friends. What if I can't make new friends, or I don't fit in? I hate the beach, when the sand sticks to my feet, or when the seagulls steal your food right before you try to take a bite. I don't want to move, I don't want to go.

Distillation

In the excerpt, the narrator expresses his views towards scientists and those experimenting on nature through his use of diction, imagery, and a shift in point of view. Switching from first to second person to create a tone of accusation, the narrator uses words with negative connotation (“nasty,” for instance), to help the reader understand his disapproval of the scientist, and to picture their experiments on plants and animals in which he despises. The narrator uses these techniques in order to portray his judgment and disapproval of the scientists to the reader. Throughout the narrator’s passage, he uses his writing to critique intellectuals involved in scientific experiments and let the readers understand his negative emotions on the topic.    

200 words

It’ll often be later in the evening, when the sun has fully set and above is covered with constellations and patterns of bright stars in the sky, after everyone has eaten a nice, long dinner and had time to discuss how their day had been, after they have all gone to sleep, the only noise heard is the sound of the TV which, has been accidently left on as a result of my father clocking out on the couch, when my dog has finally stopped running around the house attempting to eat everything he can get his mouth on, when the cars that usually speed destructively down the main street I live on have all settled down and abandoned the streets, when my sister bangs her fist on the thin wall that separates her room from my own, screaming at me to turn my “awful” music down because, “it’s too loud and some of us would like to sleep”, after I turned my music up just a tad louder, only for a few minutes until I turn it off, but loud enough to piss her off, after I’ve showered and taken the time to relax, right when I’m about to pass out, that’s when I remember I didn’t do my math homework.

Angry Letter

Dear Madeline,

I couldn't help but notice the skirt you are currently wearing. It's very lovely, I really like it. Perhaps, I like it so much because it's, oh I don't know, mine!! You took it from the bottom row of my side of our closet, and don't try and convince me it's yours. That trick has never worked on me before, so it definitely won't work when I had planned on wearing said skirt tomorrow. I even told you I was going to wear it!! Just because we share a room and a closet doesn't mean you can just go onto my side and steal everything I own without asking. Is it yours? No. You would not enjoy if you went to grab something and then, poof, it had suddenly disappeared. Don't try telling me you're not the one who stole it, you are the only sister I have AND it's currently ON YOUR BODY. It didn't grow a pair legs and walk off my hanger, so don't tell me you just found it lying around. And yes, I know our deal, you can borrow anything you like. But, if I do recall correctly, there were some a few things that went along with our agreement, like mini rules to go along with the main law. The first part was that, while you can wear whatever you want, you have to ask. I don't care if you want to borrow a sweater (even if it practically goes down to your knees, might I remind you I'm almost three years older than you) but you have to ask. "Hey Morgan, can I wear this tomorrow?" Now see, was that so hard? All you have to do is ask and I will usually give you permission to borrow something of mine, And the second little follow up rule is the owner of the piece of clothing (so in the case me) is allowed to say no, if they are going to be wearing said article of clothing in the near future. So even if you had followed the rules like a decent person would, I still would not have allowed you to take the skirt. You knew I was going to wear it, yet you decided to be annoying and obnoxious, and broke the golden rule. And while it sounds ridiculous and petty, sharing a room with your sleep talking self can be a pain in my ass, and the only thing keeping me from strangling you, are rules. Rules we put in place to stay away from pushing each other's buttons. Rules in which you broke. This incident has put you on closet probation until further notice, next time you should probably ask instead of just taking whatever you want. That'd be awesome thanks!

With no love,
Your Sister

Apostrophe

Consume me. Take over my already lifeless and numb body, please I beg you. The pills have already spilled down my esophagus and now I'm just waiting for you. I'm ready to leave, for you to pluck me out of this world and take me into yours. Please, Death, I beg you. 

Synecdoche

The only feature I remembered about her was her hair. Fiery, bright, and vibrant, bouncing down her spine every time she leaned her head back, laughing at something that wasn't really funny but the amount of tequila coursing through her veins made anything laughable. Red was stunning, every guy in there was watching as she stood on tables and danced. Men would keep buying her shots, hoping Red would get a little too drunk and they'd get the chance to take her home. But Red didn't go home with any of these men, witnesses all stated that they had seen her leave with the group of equally stunning girls she had originally walked in with. Red had gone back to her small apartment in Back Bay, where her friends had cleaned her up, and tucked her into bed, closing the curtains to help the hangover they were positive would hit her the next day. But Red never woke up the next morning, nor the next. The stab wounds in her chest and red-stained sheets made it obvious she wouldn't wake up again.

Unreliable Narrator or Unorthodox Point of View

I don’t think she’s showered in weeks. On the off chance I do bribe her and get her into the bath, she just sits there, shivering and curling herself into a ball. The only thing she bothers to put on anymore are oversized sweatshirts, or a t-shirt if it’s a little warmer out. Her auburn curls are matted and tangled together, all tightly knotted at the top of her head. Her jade eyes no longer light up at the sound of music on our record player, which sits next to the couch in the living room. She refuses to eat, and anything I’m able to coax down her throat just comes back up. Her body is no longer soft and delicate, it’s become frail and sharp as each bone becomes more and more prominent. I haven’t seen her smile since the accident.

“It’s your fault” he tells me. “I’m dead because of you. You did this to me, and now you should feel incredibly guilty. You’ll never know peace and happiness again now that I’m gone.” My mind screams at him, telling him to leave me alone. He appears everywhere, a constant reminder of what I have done. I’m sorry. No matter how many times I try to explain to him it was an accident, he won’t leave me alone. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. It was an accident, I promise. Or was it? I don’t know. He was scaring me and I was driving and the paternity test results were in his hands and I didn’t see the patch of black ice in the road. He’s gone but he’s everywhere, even when I close my eyes.

I can tell nightmares plague her thoughts when she closes her eyes. I can feel her body tense and her muscles clench beside me in bed. She tosses and turns, tears often staining her cheeks. Every time she cries out, I awaken her, but I can tell that to her, the real world is no safer to her than her own thoughts. Our son still hasn’t learned to sleep through the night, and even his wails can’t snap her out of this dark place she’s trapped in.

I hear him crying. It’s faint, and almost far away, but I can hear it. I try to block him out, to find a silence. His tears and screams only remind me of what I had done. His eyes and his little nose remind me of Mark, but tiny dark hairs on his head could only come from Jack.

I can understand why she might be depressed. The accident had been so awful. She had stayed at the office late to help her boss finish up a sales pitch they were working on. Her and Jack often had late nights, so around midnight I tucked our son in, and went to bed. The call at three woke me and the baby up, its ring piercing the silence of the night. “On the freeway,” they said, “your wife’s car flipped over.” I gunned it to the hospital, Mason in the backseat, thinking only negative thoughts about what had happened. But she was okay. A couple of stitches in her forehead, a few broken ribs, but other than that she was ok. Relief hit me like a truck, until I was asked to identify a body; Jack’s. Apparently his car broke down and she was giving him a ride to the train station where his wife was going to pick him up.

“That baby is mine and you know it,” he screams. “I have a paternity test right here, why don’t we have a look at?” Maybe I did mean to hit the ice. Maybe I wanted him dead. “You know you wanted me dead, I had the potential to destroy your perfect little life.” Go away. Leave me be please. The whole thing was a big mistake and it never should have happened. I didn’t love him, but Mark had been mad at me for a while and I was a little drunk and he was there and then we were both there, with our clothes on the ground, a set of despicable, cheating liars. We both deserve to be dead.

She doesn’t deserve anything that’s happened to her. She is beautiful and kind, a caring mother. When I saw her sleeping in the hospital, all I could feel was relief that she was ok, that I never wanted anything to happen to her, that I would protect her forever.

“No one can protect you from yourself. From what you did to me, and everything we had done. No one will ever want to protect you.”

The doctor’s told me the possible side effects. She would want to sleep a lot, the pain killers would make her drowsy. “She might be a little depressed, for a couple weeks,” the doctors said. But weeks have turned into months now, and she still won’t leave whatever she’s buried herself in. She refuses the medicine, the sight of any anti-depressant pill makes her nose scrunch up and go deeper into her shell.

Mark would never forgive me once he knows. No one would ever forgive me. We both deserve to be dead.

All I want is for her to be better, to get better. I wish she would take the pills, even just a couple. It couple help her get better, be happy. She deserves to be happy again, to hold her child and watch him grow, smiling when he wins a football game, or scolding him when his report card is not to the standards that she expects him. She deserves to dance at the sound of our record player in the living room, and to laugh at her own corny jokes. She deserves to be her old self, the girl everyone loves, the girl I love.

We both deserve to be dead.

 

 

Open Ended Promt

It was Christmas Eve. Fog stuck to the tarmac at Lindbergh Field. Night had fallen across San Diego, and the city buzzed below the hundreds of passengers who busied themselves while the plane was in still in the air. The 20-something year old pilot handled the plane with ease, even though the fog and clouds combined made it nearly impossible to see anything in front of the him. The pilot never drank, he hated the taste of most alcohol and had trouble holding it down. There were times when sadness of his losses would overcome him and he'd drown out his sorrows with a bottle. And one year ago that day, he placed dirt on top of the lowered casket of the man who'd raised him, so at this point he didn't give a damn about the taste or his job, he just wanted to drown. He took another sip out of his water bottle, drinking a clear beverage that if you got close enough, the smell would let you know it was not water. Soon enough the bottle was empty, as was the flask he had hidden in his coat pocket. The copilot, who was supposed to be helping fly the plane, had dosed off in his chair, a little drool dripping onto his chin. Lights were flashing on the control panels and noises were coming from every corner of the cockpit. The young pilot, while still awake, was barely in control of his own body. Dizziness overcame him and soon enough his dinner was in a pool on the ground. More lights were flashing, more noises and calls came from the control tower and the plane started to bump around, causing a few of the passengers to fall out of their seats. The copilot woke up, feeling groggy and questioning where he was, like you do after taking a nap in the middle of the day. More lights, more sounds, more bumps, more falls. And then they stopped. Sparks flew from the plane as the electrical wiring hit the water. Passengers and the copilot became submerged in water, struggling to swim under the force of the plane taking them deeper under, farther away from the surface. The pilot had passed out drunk before the plane hit the water. It was Christmas Eve. Fog stuck to the tarmac at Lindbergh Field. And presents the next morning were left unopened, places at the dinner table empty, and a bottle of vodka missing from the airport’s bar.

The Plot Sickens Reflection:

The Plot Sickens by Fanny Howe talks about the increase of violent outcomes and decrease in the quality of a plotline in her recent student's work. When given just two sentences to start with and the opportunity to write about anything they wanted "out of the 20 stories generated by this assignment, only 5 had endings that could qualify as 'happy.'" Most students will write violent stories with gruesome endings, which to Howe's belief is now due to the lack of the ability to solve a problem. Students will write stories about "victims of hideous violence on accidents, they commit crimes but only for the hell of it, they hate, not understanding why they hate; they are loved or abused or depressed, and don't understand why." The lack of plot makes it easier to gruesomely get rid of the protagonist in a somewhat interesting way instead of solving the problem. My story substantiates Howe's ideas, as it lacks a major plot line, and the story can be considered somewhat violent, as it involves everyone dying in a plane crash due to a drunk pilot. In my opinion, it's just easier to write stories with a violent ending, probably due to the fact that you can lack a plotline while still making it interesting.

Self Deprecation: This or That? Or That?

       Every human being, more often than not, is going to be faced with decisions to make. That’s a major part of life, choosing one thing over another, taking one path instead of a different one. In life, decisions can be difficult to make, especially if they are going to have a major impact on your lifestyle and how you continue to go on after you make that decision. So naturally, any big decision being made need to be given lots of thought, as it could potentially change your entire life. But then there are the decisions that should be made easily, without much hesitation or thought. Like when the waiter comes over with his pad of paper and asks simply, “What would you like to drink?” Just the simple question of what beverage I’d like to have with my meal can leave me muttering a series of “I don’t knows” under my breath. Morgan, it’s a drink, not rocket science, yet my indecision and lack of the ability to make any type of decision what so ever can make what should be a simple “Iced tea, please,” a mission to the moon.

Ordering food is no different, in many ways it's even more difficult. Recently, my family made an impromptu drive into Boston during a snow storm, because that's clearly a very smart and thought out decision. We were all starving and decided to stop at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. After waiting a while for a table to clear up, we were seated. The waitress handed us our menus, which might as well have been a textbook the thing was so thick. Instantly, I started to feel stressed out, there were pages upon pages of different salads, pastas, and meats. When it came time to order our food, I was flustered an unprepared. So, I waited to order. I sent the waitress back to wherever she waits while I make the hard decision as to what I want to eat that night. I told her I wasn't ready and she left, clearly annoyed with my request. Eventually I narrowed it down to two meals, I which I then has someone else choose which one I ate because the decision was too stressful.

Never go shopping with me. Ever. I’m warning you now, you will probably want to kill me or yourself multiple times during the experience. Maybe even take the both of us down in a murder-suicide scenario, if you're really feeling destructive. I’m incapable of committing to a piece of clothing or a bag of chips until I know everything that’s out there. What if I find something I like better or want more, but I already wasted my money on this shirt that now seems useless? What if I find something similar somewhere else for a cheaper price, allowing me more bang for my buck? One time while I was shopping with my friend, I purchased three different shirts. Then, while eating mango chicken in the mall food court, my quick decisions came back to haunt me, and what I had bought no longer seemed like the right choice. So within the couple hours or so we had been at the mall, I bought 3 shirts, then returned them. Eventually I bought completely different clothes, but not before I got a good look at everything each store had to offer. The best thing stores have ever come up with is the option to put items on hold. You just ask them to put what you want behind the register and no one can have for a specific amount of time besides you. This allows me to completely look around before making my final decision, but keep anything I may want available for me. Let’s just say I use the option to put stuff on hold so frequently, it could probably be made into a drinking game. Now there are many ways I could end this essay, but I really couldn't decide. So if you could just save me the trouble of stressing for another hour that would be great. Just pretend I said something really heartwarming or funny and we can call it a day.